VentureLab Expands to Austin and Launches High School Startup program

It is debuting High School Startup at Capital Factory. The camp kicks off June 15th and runs through June 26th. It costs $650, but VentureLab is offering ten scholarships to attend the program for free. Click here to apply for one of the free spots with the code “Capital Factory.”

Cristal Glangchai, founder and CEO of VentureLab, relocated to Austin for personal reasons recently, and she’s now running camps in both San Antonio and Austin.

The Austin High School Startup teaches kids to turn their ideas into products or services and launch a company.

“Austin is a mecca for budding entrepreneurs and we saw an opportunity to bring our academy to the market as an extended resource to help high school students take what they learn in the classroom, and physically apply that knowledge in an inspiring entrepreneurial environment,” Glangchai said.

The High School Startup is the first of four camps scheduled in Austin this summer, Glangchai said. The other programs will focus on K-8 students.

The High School Startup program, for students ages 14 to 19, teaches leadership and team building skills. It is like a mini-bootcamp on launching a business complete with mentors that help coach the student teams. In the camp, students will do market research, customer development, build, prototype and launch their product or service and crowdfund for startup funds. The program ends with a “demo day” in which the students pitch their ventures to Austin investors and entrepreneurs.

“When VentureLab approached us to host their first camp for high school students in the Austin area, we jumped on the chance to introduce more entrepreneurial young people into our community,” Joshua Baer, founder of Capital Factory, said in a news statement. “I applaud VentureLab for inspiring the next generation of world-changers, and look forward to seeing them working on a business at Capital Factory some day.”

VentureLab, founded in 2013, is a nonprofit organization. More than 1,200 students have attended one of its programs in San Antonio so far. Its student run ventures hve raised $240,000 and launched three companies, according to VentureLab.

VentureLab, with five employees, runs programs in San Antonio and now Austin, based on teaching students about entrepreneurship, science, technology, engineering, art and math.